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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Three questions for the end of the day

Back in my angry, bitter, post-undergrad days I was really tired of being surrounded by people who couldn't keep their shit together. Seriously, this life is not that hard. Step 1: Get some skills in something and get a job. Step 2: Try to show up and not fail at your job and you should have enough money to do something fun after hours. Step 3: Don't be an asshole (maybe this should be step 1.)

So many people fail at these easy steps... but I'm over it now.

Somewhere in my journey I realized that this philosophy was doing me great harm. It would be great if the world was so simple: Show up to life, work hard, and be rewarded or don't and be a failure. Too bad nothing is that simple.

People have their own challenges. Now when I look at other people I don't give a damn how their paychecks compare to mine or how big their houses are or how well they measure up to my old standards of success. Instead, I look at how they deal with little things. Do they treat others with dignity? Do they pause to appreciate beauty in the world? Do they learn from failure or make excuses?

This has made me a much nicer person. Until I realize I still beat myself up over my old standards of success.

Now at the end of the day, I ask myself those same questions.

Did I treat others with dignity?

Did I pause to appreciate what was beautiful?

Did I learn from failure or did I make excuses?

Before I wrote this, I was sinking into a bad mood. Late at night its so easy to feel alone and weak. Its so easy to trivialize the day's work as I look ahead and see how far away my goals still are. But on this day I did not fail my three questions.